December 29, 2014

I generally take that sort of thing with a grain of salt. Steven hates recommendations and thus I don't expect him to give many either; he's perfectly capable of watching a show and enjoying it but not to the point where he'd point it out to anyone else either.

At the same time, was the year really that bad? There are plenty of shows I'd recommend with certain provisos...

No Game No Life has that same proviso squared - more than one loli, underdressed much more often, and with sexual humor involving same (not quite creepy but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who didn't already have a callus built up for that). On the other hand, it had some genuinely clever writing - the shiritori episode was fantastic. Also quite nicely animated too.

Encouragement of Climb. Mediocre first season of very short episodes. Follow-up two cours with half-length episodes, much stronger. Cute as a button without getting as saccharine as, say, Is the Order a Rabbit could get. Plus I like mountains to begin with... Only real negative is that it's not really a deep show; girls go climb mountains and, well, that's what happens.

I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Thinking - best 3-minute show out there. "Got more character development than most shows do in an entire season," someone mentioned on reddit, and that comment hit dead-on. This could have really easily turned into the same ol' same ol' of otaku jokes every week, but they did a great job of leavening it with interesting characters.

There were other things which I personally enjoyed but which I don't know that I'd recommend to anyone. Nanatsu no Taizai is/was plenty of fun. Inou Battle started off as a basic trope subversion, subverted the subversion, then subverted the subverting, though all within the context of a harem comedy, so that kind of limits the praise you can give it, y'know? Fate is Fate, absolutely quality, but it doesn't "feel" new given that it's not exactly the first bite at that apple. I liked Invaders, Locodol, Hozuki no Reitetsu, and of course there's stuff like Kill la Kill and Log Horizon that you don't need me to recommend or not recommend at this point... Silver Spoon and Strike the Blood were pretty good too for completely different reasons.

I don't know that any of these shows would make my "very favorite of all time" list, to be sure. But a few are close enough for an honorable mention. Don't think it was a particularly bad year for anime, honestly - few outstanding shows but enough moderately entertaining ones.

2
I liked what I've seen of it, but I haven't really sat down and watched more than half of the first series. Sold a -ton- of models at Kawaiikon, though. (Them Bearguys...)

I watched one ep of Shirobako so far. It's on the "probably will enjoy, but later" list. I tend to discount shows that are about the people who make the shows in the same way as I discount manga about manga artists.

3
It seems there was always a rom-com to watch, if not love, in each season. Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou, Nozaki (not really a rom-com, but kind of), Mikakunin de Shinkoukei, and another I can't think of. Nisekoi was okay, but got old fast. The manga shows it will never really progress except for harem members.